During the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and last year’s Biennial of the Americas, then-Mayor John Hickenlooper and other leaders touted Denver as a burgeoning cultural center and creative crucible.

But if arts and creativity are crucial to the city’s evolving identity and economic growth, some local arts leaders question why the city eliminated the independent Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, or DOCA, in June, merging it into a new city agency known as Arts & Venues Denver.

Anthony Radich, executive director of the Denver-based Western States Arts Federation, believes it is the wrong move at the wrong time. In what is becoming an increasingly competitive realm, more and more cities are promoting creative economic sectors and cultural tourism.

“They are, if anything, really investing in the personnel and investing in the structure and organization of arts agencies at the city level. And here I see Denver disinvesting, and that is very troubling,” Radich said.

Denise Montgomery, who headed the Office of Cultural Affairs from 2003 to 2006 and is now an arts consultant in San Diego, said areas of crossover do exist between her former office and the Division of Theatres & Arenas. But she does not see a justification for fusing the two.

Indeed, cultural affairs was long thought of as the high-minded advocate of the city’s arts groups. Theatres & Arenas was more of a well-respected facilities manager.

In the new arrangement, facilities wins out.

“To have the facilities group overseeing cultural development for the community doesn’t really make sense to me,” Montgomery said.

Worse, she said, the elimination of the Office of Cultural Affairs and its mayor-appointed director means that Denver’s arts community no longer has a dedicated voice in the mayor’s cabinet.

The dispute has opened a rift in Denver’s arts community, with critics of the merger calling on Michael Hancock, who will be inaugurated Monday as Denver’s mayor, to reassess the structure and direction of the city’s cultural administration.

While well-versed on the arts in Denver, Hancock so far has not unveiled his intentions.

“He is aware of the concerns raised by some in the arts community about the merger, and will continue to listen to the people of Denver and garner feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders as he makes key decisions to lead Denver forward,” Hancock’s new spokesman, Wil Alston, wrote in an an e-mail.

Among the many decisions Hancock will have to make is whether to keep or replace Kent Rice, now executive director of the merged Arts & Venues department.

He engineered the departmental merger along with Jan Brennan. She was appointed director of the Office of Cultural Affairs by Mayor John Hickenlooper after its former head, Erin Trapp, left at the end of 2010 to become the mayor’s deputy chief of staff.

Rice said he is aware of the criticism of the changes, but he emphatically rejects it.

“I have to emphasize,” he said, “that the rest of us are feeling very good about the merger, that it’s going to be better for the arts community broadly, both the larger arts organizations, like the ballet and DCPA (Denver Center for Performing Arts), as well as the smaller ones. I hope we prove that out over the next couple of years.”

And Rice has his supporters, like Greg Carpenter, general director of Opera Colorado, who does not believe that marrying the Office of Cultural Affairs with Theatres & Arenas will hurt the arts.

“I certainly don’t have a sense of that in any way, shape or form,” he said. “A really fine leader like Kent is someone who can manage and lead a diverse portfolio of activities.”

Rice and Brennan pushed for the consolidation in part because they saw some overlapping duties. But most important, they saw it as a way to help relieve the city’s looming $100 million budget deficit.

The merger allows the city to fund the $1.2 million annual budget of the Office of Cultural Affairs using surplus revenue that the former Division of Theatres & Arenas generates through facilities rentals and other sources.

According to Rice, the city’s facilities typically make between $1 million and $2 million of “profit in quotes” each year that goes into a “special revenue fund” that is not counted as part of the city’s general fund.

“The budget and the programs are completely intact,” Rice said of what used to be the Office of Cultural Affairs. “There has been no diminution of money or responsibility or activity for what DOCA is doing this year or planned for next year.”

Funding for repairs changed

But there is a caveat: Normally, the surplus funds that the facilities generate are used for maintenance and repairs.

Rice acknowledged there is a risk that using much of that money to fund cultural activities could require Arts & Venues to ask for additional funds from the city’s general fund to cover necessary capital improvements some years.

Although discussions about the merger began in February, arts leaders did not voice any opposition until earlier this month, when the agency announced the creation of two new positions that report directly to Rice.

Ginger White was promoted to director of creative-sector initiatives, and Brennan, who joined the Office of Cultural Affairs in 2006, was named director of program development — the top arts job in Arts & Venues.

Radich said he trusted Trapp and Brennan to ensure the interests of the arts community in the merger, but what he sees as the mishandling of the hiring process belatedly opened his eyes to the merger’s larger faults.

While no one is criticizing the promotion of White, Radich and others are challenging the appointment of Brennan, former membership and communications director for the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts. He says flatly that she was not the most qualified person for the job.

“I think she is not competitive,” Radich said. “She does not have a vast background in the arts. If you opened this up nationally and really did do a ‘national’ search, there are many, many other people who would be much (more) competitive.”

Another critic of the merger, John Grant, who directed Denver’s public art program in 1996-2006, agreed.

“She’s always been sort of a second-fiddle person who was doing paperwork for another director,” he said.

But Rice vigorously disagreed. He called Brennan the most qualified person “by far.”

“I have to say the criticism that she is unqualified is fairly frustrating, since she had been in the agency for six years and she was already the incumbent director for six months,” Rice said.

Radich, Montgomery and Grant question the validity of the search process, which they said was rushed (applications were accepted for two weeks) and not transparent. It generated 41 applications, which they say is abnormally low.

In addition, they note that there were no arts representatives among the five people who interviewed the candidates. In addition to two recruiting specialists, the rest of the group were former members of the Theatres & Arenas staff.

But Rice said the agency followed the guidelines of the Career Service Authority, Denver’s official human-resources agency. There were 11 semifinalists for the post, including five from outside Denver.

“I’ve been in the private sector for 25 years running companies, and I’ve rarely seen such a thorough and objective process,” Rice said.